OK it boils down to two tractors

The second machine is Much Much closer than the first it is here in state and an easy drive to go see. It is prety straight and clean by the photos could use a paint job. It is a late model 1971 JD 4020 only one remote has diff locking. I can go down and have it pulled on a dyno I can drive it, I can do what I need to do to check it out. The price is $8,000.00 and to ship it it is less than $300.00. So a potential $8300.00 total investment.

I have to say it is a long shot that I will go up to North Dakota, even if the cost is only $350.00 to see this tractor. I will really have to buy it with out trying it out. So it boils down to a 1968 tractor for 7100.00 cause I want be trying it out, or $8300.00 for a tractor I can spen Quality time with before I make my purchase.

Question which way or how would any of you give advice on this? What are yalls opinions?

Any comments are greatly welcomed..

A late model 4020 side console model for $8,300 I can't say I have ever heard of them selling that cheap here in Ohio. I'm sure they have some room to budge on the price. Go check it out pick it apart and make them an offer. Most dealers have some kinda warranty I'd think.

There's one on page two of the photo ads with a loader located in Iowa.

Guy is only asking $16.5K for it, so if you figure in the "Green Paint Currency Exchange Rate", that makes it worth about $6K of real actual value.

Gotta watch these things. :>)

Allan

Well, at least it won't new a new TA! That makes it a little more affordable!

Factory remotes are easier to add to the later 4020 than the earlier one, but on either its not difficult or expensive to add as many remotes as you can ever wish, so long as you can find room for them. You simply plumb in valves just like you plumb in the loader with its own valve.

There ought to be at last another 500 4020 in between your place and ND that are for sale and could be considered.

Gerald J.

Well as far as trying to find one localy it really is tough. There have been several factors involving as to what the reasons were. Some were power shift, most did not have diff locking, Most could NOT be Dynoed and were sold from an individual.

You are soo right though I sould be able to find one in my back yard here locally. I guess if I look long enough I can find one. But Hey, this one for $8,000.00 is local...

The side console engines don't have a crankcase ventilation pump.

There's the side console.

The side console tractor has a deeper dish to the steeering wheel.

The side console, as you know, has an oval muffler for a bit better forward vision.

Most early 4020 diesels were built 24 volts unless shipped with an airconditioned cab. Then they were shipped 12 volts. I've seen it said all side console diesels were 12 volt. I don't know that is true or false. Converting from 24 to 12 isn't hard, Deere sells a kit for the task, about $600 the last time I saw it advertised. The big expense would be the Nippondenso starter as I see it.

In Iowa a side console 4020 starts out at least $4000 higher than an earlier tractor. And there are those lusting after the last year who will pay as much as a working 4230 with a good cab goes for, up about $14.5K.

There are enough differences that all the shop manuals and parts books are separate, even the I&T manual treats them separately. Some of the fundamental hydraulic tests good for the early tractor damage the test equipment (and the operator) if tried on the side console tractor.

Somewhere along the line engine sizes were larger in the side console than the early though it may have only been the gas engine that was different.

You can probably find more differences if you compare the owner's, shop, parts, and I&T manuals. While you are looking you should own at least one of these. The I&T is the most general and least informative but the least expensive since there are at least three editions of the owner's manual and two of the parts and shop manuals. And the parts manual may not describe enough about the parts other than Deere part number to identify the differences, though when parts are the same from early to late, the part numbers probably will be identical.

Since I own an early gas tractor, my books are biased to it and I don't have the later books and I'm no authority on diesel injectors or injection pumps, though I do see in some parts catalogs that there are at least a couple different sizes and models of injectors that were used, clearly not interchangeable.

Gerald J.

Last night I looked in the I&T manual and it had nothing on 24 volt diesels in the section on the side console tractor, just 12 volt starters and alternators.

I'm sure the many older 4020 that have been converted to 12 volts adds confusion.

If I had a 24 volt 4020, I don't know I'd spend the money to convert to 12, though since I don't run the tractor all day every time I start it, I'd want an alternator to charge those batteries in ten minutes instead the 6 to 8 hours that 10 Amp generator had to have taken. And if I couldn't make an alternator with a ground so it charged the batteries independently (and I think that would only take one added wire from the alternator insides), I'd seriously consider two independent alternators to do that. The small generator and the demand on keeping loads balanced to balance the battery chargeing were the achille's tendons of the 24 volt system. And those weaknesses lead to failures that confused many users and shops.

But then I'm an electrical engineer who knew what the insides of a motor winding looking like before I learned the math of them in school.

Gerald J.

-Peabo

Plus, if you do travel up there, look at it, and then decide not to buy it, now you are out another 500 and will probably go look at the local one anyway.

Go see the one near your house, run it well, and see if it does what you want it to do and has what you are looking for. If it does, buy it. If not, figure out what its missing that you really want, and then just find one that has all of those things.